The Great Future Debate and the Struggle for the World

Abstract

what they argued was a general theory of prediction, a theory that, Helmer boasted, would "enabl[e] us to deal with socio-economic and political problems as confidently as we do with problems in physics and chemistry." 1 Work had begun at RAND in the early 1960s to find a systematic and scientific approach to the future. Computers had made it possible to "amass all available information" about ongoing developments and process it in a systematic way, providing "the kind of massive data processing and interpreting capability that, in the physical sciences, created the breakthrough which led to the development of the atomic bomb." 2 This meant a radical shift in notions of the future, a shift that was emphasized by many of the futurists of the period. The future, Helmer stated in another assertive piece, could now be liberated from the grip of utopian fantasy and superstition and be welcomed into the halls of science. n the years following the publication of the RAND report, futurology was hailed as the new science in international science journals and popularized in newspapers, broadcasts, and study circle materials. The futurists, wrote Alvin Toffler in his 1972 book by that title, were a new group in intellectual life. The word "futurism" no longer evoked "a school of poets, painters and playwrights who flourished in Europe . . . then vanished into the library stacks and museum showcases." It "now denotes a growing school of social critics, scientists, philosophers, planners, and others who concern themselves with the alternatives facing man as the human race collides with an onrushing future." 5 Unlike astrologers, necromancers, and palm readers, Toffler explained, the quest of this new breed of intellectuals was not to predict the future.